UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for the international community to act against Israel during his address at the 57th session of the Human Rights Council on Monday.
Turk devoted the largest section of his speech on any one country or issue to the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, spending most of that time criticizing Israel rather than Hamas, which launched the war with the October 7 massacre.
"Since the horrific 7 October attacks claimed the lives of over 1,200 victims in Israel and injured many others, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, several thousand injured, and thousands remain under the rubble in Gaza," he's said, citing the figures provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians and are considered highly suspect at best.
He compared the plight of the Israeli hostages who were kidnapped on October 7 to the imprisonment of terrorists by Israel, saying, "Each day, Palestinians struggle to survive. Nearly 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced across the strip, many multiple times. Eleven months on, 101 Israeli hostages are still held to be in Gaza. While the actual number is likely higher, almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons or ad hoc military facilities, many arbitrarily, with over 50 people having died due to inhumane conditions and ill-treatment."
Turk also criticized Israel's efforts to combat terrorism in Judea and Samaria, which claimed the lives of six people in the last two weeks, saying, "In the West Bank, deadly and destructive operations, some at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades, are worsening a calamitous situation there, already aggravated by serious settler violence."
"Ending that war and averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority," Turk declared before calling on the international community to act against Israel beyond the context of the war..
"Equally, the wider situation of illegality across the occupied Palestinian territory deriving from Israel’s policies and practices, as so clearly spelled out by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion in July, must be comprehensively addressed," he said, adding an accusation that Israel is demonstrating "blatant disregard for international law."
Turk did not speak at such length about any other country or conflict, mentioning the plight of women in Afghanistan and the human rights situation in Iran in just one sentence each. The war between Russia and Ukraine merited one paragraph, as did the human rights situation in Sudan, still a fraction of the time given to criticizing Israel.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner has been accused of bias against Israel, such as when he reacted to the execution of six Israeli hostages by Hamas terrorists a little over a week ago with skepticism, referring merely to "reports" Hamas had murdered the hostages and calling for an "independent investigation."
Turk was also quick to criticize Israel after it began to respond to the massacre of 1,200 people committed by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7, 2023. In November, he published a statement criticizing Israel's response to the massacre, without having criticized Hamas or acknowledged the atrocities it committed.